Greg's Latest Responses : Ask Greg

Question from Marvelman

Marvelman asks:

At what point will Outsider be considered to be in-production? The writing is considered to be pre-production, right? I know you are now recording the voices. Is that part of the production phase?

Greg responds:

It depends how you're defining your terms. Broadly speaking, Young Justice: Outsiders is in production and has been for over a year.

But if you're going to divide the broad term "Producton" into it's three main components, i.e. Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production, then:

Writing, voice recording, storyboard, design, direction are all elements of pre-production, and are all done here in Burbank.

Overseas animation is the actual production, done in Seoul, South Korea.

Editing, retakes, music, sound effects, visual effects, foley, sound mixing and on-lining are all elements of Post, which is also done here in Burbank.

Young Justice: Outsiders is very deep into Pre-Production, and pretty darn deep into Production, and beyond the shallow end in Post-Production, as well.

In any case, we're still right on schedule.

Response recorded on April 16, 2018

Question from Marvelman

Marvelman asks:

How far up on the Kinsey scale would a woman have to be to be effected by Queen Bee's power? Would the extent of her homosexual attraction effect the degree to which she could resist Queen Bee's control? For example, would someone who was bi-sexual more readily resist her influence, or does her power not work that way?

Greg responds:

I don't pretend to be a biologist, so I'm willing to be corrected on this point, but it seems to me that anyone who can be affected by female human pheromones, is going to be affected. Degree doesn't matter, because they are very powerful.

Response recorded on April 16, 2018

Question from Marvelman

Marvelman asks:

A few years ago, in Geoff Johns' Justice League, Captain Cold said to Wonder Woman: "Not every super-villain wants to blow up the world." (Or words to that effect.) It got me to thinking... the Light's plans must seem like doomsday to most people who aren't on board with their agenda. It's hard for me to see how someone like Captain Cold, who we see robbing a bank in season 2, is going to benefit from the Light instigating an alien invasion. So, my question is: are there super-criminals in the YJ universe who disagree with the Light's plans or even actively oppose it?

Greg responds:

Keep in mind that very few people know the deep details. The big guns are saying, "Do this and it'll work in your favor." And a lot of them do.

Response recorded on April 16, 2018

Question from Jack Carpenter

Jack Carpenter asks:

Would it be fair to assume that in Earth-16, most of the heroes have more or less the same archenemies as their comics counterparts? I know L'Gann called Manta "our King's greatest enemy" and someone once asked about Lex and Supes and you basically said yes, but does it more or less apply to the rest as well?

Greg responds:

I'm not going to give a blanket confirmation of this kind of thing. Part of the point of even having Earth-16 is to keep the geek audience off-balance. You can't necessarily go back and read comics to figure out how we're approaching things. Sometimes we might follow an individual story, but more often than not, we'll - at minimum - put our YJ spin on it.

For example:

Captain Cold's main opponent = Flash (as expected)

Mister Freeze's main opponent = Batman (as expected)

Killer Frost's main opponent = Aquaman (not as expected)

No guarantees.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from Marvelman

Marvelman asks:

Why did Wally attend public school? If he was such a genius, couldn't he have gotten a scholarship to a private school?

Greg responds:

You're assuming that private school is better?

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not. He was in a good school district.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from John Doe

John Doe asks:

Hi Greg, I read somewhere you said that If possible you'd want to get to every young DC hero as young justice goes on. This might be a silly question but I just wanted to know if you were speaking broadly or literally. Also if what I read was wrong and you never said that feel free to ignore my question. Keep up the goof work, can't wait for season 3

Greg responds:

Mostly, I'm speaking broadly, but given enough episodes, it might perhaps become literal. No spoilers.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from Peter

Peter asks:

Hey! Young Justice is my life. As of the time I'm sending this, Pride Month is almost over. I read over lots of the asks and replies you get on here and a fair amount are about something LGBT related, whether its about something thats akin to Fanfiction or borderline homophobic. I'm sure you might have come to dread those types of questions, but mines is a bit different.

I don't want you to think that I'm requesting this, i guess at the end of the day i am, but i mean so in the most respectful way possible. Please... If there's ever a time when you might include LGBT content or anything like it in YJ, please don't let it be queerbaiting. Its such a horrible thing to do to us. I don't think I'd be able to handle it from my favorite show. I don't think you'd ever let that happen, and i don't even think we'd get LGBT relationships in the show, but i just had to say it. For myself, just in case.

Greg responds:

I had to look up queerbaiting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting

Some of the examples given on the wikipedia page seem unfair to me. (Though I'm happy to grant that as a straight male, I'm coming at this from a very different point of view.) For example, calling Holmes and Watson queerbaiting actually seems outrageous to me. Creators need to be able to present two male or two female best friends in a close but non-sexual relationship without being accused of trying to "bait" anyone.

I'm not going to address anything related to YJ, since that would involve spoilers, but I will bring up some Gargoyles stuff, as an example.

In our minds, Lexington is gay. But in those mid-nineties days when the series was originally on the air, there was absolutely no way Disney would let us objectively show this. Nevertheless, we strove to write the character to be consistent with his orientation. We thought we were doing the best possible alternative. So were we queerbaiting? And what would the alternative have been? Not depicting any LGBTQ characters at all?

I, personally, don't have the clout to make (successful) ultimatums to my employers. I could, of course, have insisted on being allowed to show Lexington kiss a guy. But if I had insisted that it's the kiss or I walk, Disney would have shrugged and waved goodbye to me. And my replacement would likely - if only to reassure his or her bosses - have made Lex objectively STRAIGHT. Is that better for anyone?

This kind of thing is simply a reality of the industry. It is getting better. There are plenty of series we can point to that demonstrate that. And I like to think I'm trying to help make things better still. But I'm going to - for my own mental health - reject the notion of queerbaiting almost entirely.

Maybe I'm not yet 'woke' enough. That's certainly possible. But I'm going to consistently push to depict what I can, to suggest what I cannot and to not for one second shy away from depicting two same sex characters having a close but platonic relationship, because (for example) one or both might be heterosexual. Because I write characters. I don't write agendas-masquerading-as-characters. I have agendas, but I don't write characters who are nothing but. I try to keep my characters consistent and true to themselves. But I'm not baiting anyone. And I'm certainly not trying to trick anyone with this sort of thing. Quite the reverse. I'm simply trying to do the best I can under occasionally hostile conditions.

Sorry if that's disappointing. But it's the best 2018 Greg Weisman can give you.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from KarrinBlue

KarrinBlue asks:

Hi Greg! Congratulations on getting season three, and hopefully many more.

1) Is the wildlife on the watchtower from the world it was originally stationed around?
2) What is Dick planning on majoring in?
3) Dick's standard override is RG-4 - RG presumably stands for 'Richard Grayson' but what does the 4 mean?
4) I noticed that Kevin Michael Richardson and Jason Marsden sang the Hello Megan and Reach commercial songs respectively. Were they picked because they had singing voices that fit the tone you were going for, for the symbolism of them also voicing J'onn and Bart, or a mixture of the two?
5) Did Marie Logan act in anything other than Hello Megan?

And, just as an aside - thank you for going to the lengths to represent different kinds of people. It really does mean a lot, even if it's in small, quiet details. I was honestly surprised at how much it meant to me to see in Face Your Fears that Kaldur would have trouble focusing with scents that the others barely noticed - I've never seen any characters that had sensory problems like mine, let alone a main character. It really does mean a lot, so thank you.

Greg responds:

1. Nope. It's from Earth.

2. No spoilers.

3. He's the fourth individual with an over-ride code.

4. Voices. Not symbolism.

5. Yes.

6. You're welcome, but honestly, my desire for diversity in my work is largely selfish. It makes for better/richer stories and a more honest depiction of the world.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from B_Schwaz

B_Schwaz asks:

You have said that Zeta-Beam transportation to Mars hasn't been set up yet because, until Sardath accidentally brought Adam Strange to Rann, it wasn't thought to be possible. However, you have also said that Martian Manhunter was initially brought to Earth via a Zeta-Beam accident. Shouldn't that have indicated to the League and Zeta-Beam scientists that it is, in fact, possible?

Greg responds:

Well, yes. "Possible." But the accident was not - at the time - reproducible, so it was "impossible" until Sardath figured out how.

Response recorded on April 11, 2018

Question from Lyle

Lyle asks:

Why does the Young Justice tie-in comic have lightning for the speedster but the show does not?

Greg responds:

It does? Where?

Response recorded on April 09, 2018

Question from Young Archer

Young Archer asks:

In season 1 episode 9 "Misplaced", Robin mentioned that everyone in the world 18 years or older, "including Red Arrow" had gone missing. And I believe Red Arrow was absent from this episode as well, in both dimensions. Now that we know Red Arrow was really only 3 years old at the time of this episode, where the heck was he? Did the distraction allow the light more time to place more programming into Red's head, or did he actually disappear and that was a big plot hole?

Sorry if this has been asked before. :|

Greg responds:

Biological age and the age that each character considered him or herself to be, won out over chronological age. Otherwise, Miss Martian, who was chronologically 48 at the time, would have been on the adult world.

There's not plot hole. He was on adult world, probably in Star City, dealing with the chaos. We just didn't show it, as we didn't show where a lot of the adult heroes were.

Response recorded on April 09, 2018